With Bou Hamara, who stated had met, discussed, signed, that he was the eldest brother and separated. It had for of the Sultan, nothing could Europe, no doubt, cleared the be done. He remained in the situation, and was a check to inaccessible Riff tribe-lands, Germany; but poor Morocco where he governed as a petty gained little-in fact, it marked Sultan; and even the Spanish one more step on its road to authorities, who waited long ruin. Never probably did such to see him driven out, were a collection of diplomatists, at last obliged to enter into whose high-sounding titles fill relation with him in order to the first few pages of that inensure the security of their significant little yellow-book "presidios." That Bou Ha- which contains the results of mara and Raisuli were in com- their insignificant labours, give munication is certain, but there themselves airs of such imwas little respect and little portance. For days together confidence between them, and they discussed the questions except for the passage of letters of the import of sporting-guns no compact of real or practical and the rifling of gun-barrels importance seems to have ex- with all the pomposity of isted between them. Yet that affairs of the gravest moment their relations were cordial is to pass to the rules for the clear from the original docu- distribution of Parcels Post. ment in my possession sealed Three or four men were playing by Bou Hamara with his great a great stake-representatives seal of State, by which he of England and France, and of appoints Raisuli Governor of Germany-and it was well certain of the mountain tribes. played. The victory remained On this seal of State Bou with the two former. The rest Hamara uses the style "Mo- were puppets, but didn't realise hammed ben Hassen," claim- it. ing thereby to be Mulai Mohammed, the eldest son of Mulai Hassen, and therefore the elder brother of the reigning Sultan. Raisuli had no pretensions to the Sultanate, though in the eyes of Europe he played a more important part, for his principal activities were employed in the district of Tangier, the diplomatic capital of the country. In 1906 that futile Conference of Algeciras-futile, that is to say, in so far as it had any beneficial effect in Morocco They really thought, or seemed to think, that their endeavours were being of service to the country which few of them knew anything about, beyond the distant view they could obtain of it from the hills above Algeciras. Northern Morocco was at its worst the year after the Algeciras Agreement had been signed, and even the pleasureloving Mulai Abdul Aziz perceived that affairs were becoming serious. He decided to open negotiations with Raisuli. For this purpose Kaid Maclean had an interview with the brigand chief in April (1907). Raisuli listened to the Kaid's proposals, but refused to accompany him to Fez, where the Sultan was then residing. However, a step had been made toward a possible arrangement. A month later, armed with the authority of the Sultan, Kaid Maclean returned to Alcazar, a town on the Tangier-Fez road, situated about sixty miles from the former. But meanwhile it had leaked out that Raisuli would attempt the capture of this important functionary. Every effort was made by the Sultan, who had also received the news, and by the British Legation, to cancel the interview, and the British Consular Agent at Alcazar was instructed to this effect. An interview with Raisuli was secretly arranged, to be held on the borders of the Ahlserif tribe-lands, some few miles from Alcazar. There these two personages met. The Sultan's propositions were made known to Raisuli, who pretended to accept them, and to be disposed to return to Fez with the Kaid. He would, he said, start at once, and if the Kaid would accompany him to the village where his camp was pitched they would set out the next day. The Kaid agreed, and entered the mountains with his host-only there was no setting out the next day, for he found himself a prisoner, and remained in captivity for some seven months, suffering considerable hardships. Of all the negotiations for the obtaining of the liberty of Raisuli's prisoners this was the most difficult. The terms demanded by Raisuli were preposterous, and a score of people seemed negotiating on their own account, while the Kaid himself was doing his utmost, and very naturally, to obtain his release. The result was confusion and misunderstanding, and the distance from Tangier at which Raisuli kept his captive increased the difficulties. Had the whole affair been left to the hands of Sir Gerard Lowther, who at this period ably represented Britain in Morocco, it is probable that Kaid Maclean's release would have been more quickly obtained. But on every occasion on which a solution seemed near, some perfectly new proposition, emanating from unauthorised sources, would frustrate the official plans. In the end Raisuli obtained £20,000, and he was made a British protected subject; and there were other minor terms. Kaid Maclean was released. The only pleasing aspect of all these brigandage cases was the absolute confidence that Raisuli always placed in the word of the British Government, the British authorities, and, in fact, in that of all Britishers. Some years after this event, when the ex-Sultan Mulai Abdul Aziz, who had just abdicated, was visiting my villa at Tangier, I showed him two Arabic documents. One was his original "Dahir" for With Bou Hamara, who stated had met, discussed, signed, that he was the eldest brother and separated. It had for of the Sultan, nothing could Europe, no doubt, cleared the be done. He remained in the situation, and was a check to inaccessible Riff tribe-lands, Germany; but poor Morocco where he governed as a petty gained little-in fact, it marked Sultan; and even the Spanish one more step on its road to authorities, who waited long ruin. Never probably did such to see him driven out, were a collection of diplomatists, at last obliged to enter into whose high-sounding titles fill relation with him in order to the first few pages of that inensure the security of their significant little yellow-book presidios." That Bou Ha- which contains the results of mara and Raisuli were in com- their insignificant labours, give munication is certain, but there themselves airs of such imwas little respect and little portance. For days together confidence between them, and they discussed the questions except for the passage of letters of the import of sporting-guns no compact of real or practical and the rifling of gun-barrels importance seems to have ex- with all the pomposity of isted between them. Yet that affairs of the gravest moment their relations were cordial is to pass to the rules for the clear from the original docu- distribution of Parcels Post. ment in my possession sealed Three or four men were playing by Bou Hamara with his great a great stake-representatives seal of State, by which he of England and France, and of appoints Raisuli Governor of Germany-and it was was well certain of the mountain tribes. played. The victory remained On this seal of State Bou with the two former. The rest Hamara uses the style "Mo- were puppets, but didn't realise hammed ben Hassen," claim- it. ing thereby to be Mulai Mohammed, the eldest son of Mulai Hassen, and therefore the elder brother of the reigning Sultan. Raisuli had no pretensions to the Sultanate, though in the eyes of Europe he played a more important part, for his principal activities were employed in the district of Tangier, the diplomatic capital of the country. In 1906 that futile Conference of Algeciras-futile, that is to say, in so far as it had any beneficial effect in Morocco They really thought, or seemed to think, that their endeavours were being of service to the country which few of them knew anything about, beyond the distant view they could obtain of it from the hills above Algeciras. Northern Morocco was at its worst the year after the Algeciras Agreement had been signed, and even the pleasureloving Mulai Abdul Aziz perceived that affairs were becoming serious. He decided to open negotiations with Raisuli. For this purpose Kaid Maclean had an interview with the brigand chief in April (1907). Raisuli listened to the Kaid's proposals, but refused to accompany him to Fez, where the Sultan was then residing. However, a step had been made toward a possible arrangement. A month later, armed with the authority of the Sultan, Kaid Maclean returned to Alcazar, a town on the Tangier-Fez road, situated about sixty miles from the former. But meanwhile it had leaked out that Raisuli would attempt the capture of this important functionary. Every effort was made by the Sultan, who had also received the news, and by the British Legation, to cancel the interview, and the British Consular Agent at Alcazar was instructed to this effect. An interview with Raisuli was secretly arranged, to be held on the borders of the Ahlserif tribe-lands, some few miles from Alcazar. There these two personages met. The Sultan's propositions were made known to Raisuli, who pretended to accept them, and to be disposed to return to Fez with the Kaid. He would, he said, start at once, and if the Kaid would accompany him to the village where his camp was pitched they would set out the next day. The Kaid agreed, and entered the mountains with his host-only there was no setting out the next day, for he found himself a prisoner, and remained in captivity for some seven months, suffering considerable hardships. Of all the negotiations for the obtaining of the liberty of Raisuli's prisoners this was the most difficult. The terms demanded by Raisuli were preposterous, and a score of people seemed negotiating on their own account, while the Kaid himself was doing his utmost, and very naturally, to obtain his release. The result was confusion and misunderstanding, and the distance from Tangier at which Raisuli kept his captive increased the difficulties. Had the whole affair been left to the hands of Sir Gerard Lowther, who at this period ably represented Britain in Morocco, it is probable that Kaid Maclean's release would have been more quickly obtained. But on every occasion on which a solution seemed near, some perfectly new proposition, emanating from unauthorised sources, would frustrate the official plans. In the end Raisuli obtained £20,000, and he was made a British protected subject; and there were other minor terms. Kaid Maclean was released. The only pleasing aspect of all these brigandage cases was the absolute confidence that Raisuli always placed in the word of the British Government, the British authorities, and, in fact, in that of all Britishers. Some years after this event, when the ex-Sultan Mulai Abdul Aziz, who had just abdicated, was visiting my villa at Tangier, I showed him two Arabic documents. was his original Dahir for 66 66 the nomination of Raisuli as Governor of the tribes, which the brigand had extorted as part of the ransom of Perdicaris, and the other was Raisuli's appointment as Governor of the same tribes bearing another great seal of State, that of the Pretender, Bou Hamara. Mulai Abdul Aziz asked me how I had become possessed of these two documents. I told him. The "" Dahir of the Pretender I had found concealed in a secret cupboard, during my imprisonment in the room of Raisuli's house at Zinat. I had carried it, sewn up in my clothing, with other equally interesting correspondence, during the whole period of my captivity. The firman of the Sultan himself I had obtained the day Raisuli's house was looted by the Makhzen troops, at which picturesque incident I had been present. The ex - Sultan smiled. "There seems," he said rather cynically, "to be nothing of interest in in Morocco which hasn't reached either your knowledge or your hands; nothing that you haven't had given, you-acquired?" "The most valuable of all things was given me," I replied. "And that was?" "Your Majesty's friendship." He smiled-again that pleasant, cynical little smile-and answered, "I often wonder whether it was God or Satan who gave you the facility of speech." "Both," "God gave me, no doubt, my English, for it was the language of my childhood and my country. As to my Arabic, I acquired it at the Court of Your Majesty, and I have hesitated to inquire too particularly who was my master.” It was at this period, while an outlaw in the mountains, that Raisuli nearly made his most important capture. It was an incident that was kept very quiet at the time, but leaked out in the French press a little later. The truth was, we Europeans who played a part-and we very nearly played a very serious partin the story had no desire for publicity. The facts were these. The ruins of Raisuli's stronghold at Zinat were only distant from Tangier about fourteen miles, and formed a tempting excursion, but one which no one undertook, as it was notoriously unsafe. However, as time went on and nothing occurred in the neighbourhood of Tangier to disturb the tranquillity, and as Raisuli and his band seemed permanently to have taken up their residence in the mountains at a considerable distance from the scene of their former activities, a picnic at Zinat was decided upon, and I was invited. The other members of our party consisted of Sir Gerard Lowther, then British Minister to Morocco, Monsieur and Madame de Beaumarchais of the French Legation, and Mr Christopher |